How do you get something from someone? Motivating him, motivating him, motivating him... Anything easier? That good old carrot and its stick!
Should we stop there? No! Let's change the concept for psycho-dynamic motivation!
Psychodynamic psychotherapy (psychoanalysis, transactional, existential analysis...) offers another understanding: faced with what we want, there is what we subconsciously fear (fear of failure, rejection, lack...).
Fears and desires come face to face in a constant interaction that seeks to find balance (homeostasis).
Every subjective position (thought, feeling, will, internal state) is the dynamic result of a complex of desires and anxieties.
The carrot and the stick deal only with desires (more or less with the desired object), but they disdain to treat anxiety.
If we admit the proponents of psychodynamic approaches: everything is balance — desire and anxiety. Therefore, acting on anxieties works as well as on desires. I would even say more: working on anxiety works better than on desire; acting on both at the same time is the Grace!
In the context of a deadlock situation, it is often more effective to ask yourself: what are the stakeholders afraid of — on a personal and subjective level —? rather than: What do they want?
Working on anxiety is rarer, mainly because it requires education. We understand quite well what someone wants; because we naturally know how to identify a personal interest. Detecting anxiety is more complex and requires your own culture and training.
However, I am going to try to present some essential elements:
The concept of anxiety
Anxiety is simple and primary. We can attempt the following schematic enumeration of the 5 fundamental anxieties: the fear of rejection, abandonment, emptiness, lack and death (generally in the form of a fear of wasting time, of the passage of time, of not respecting a dreamed life course...). A simplistic grid, but at first glance, it allows you to start looking at yourself.
For example, in a divorce where negotiations are stalling and where the parties cannot let go (the agreement is there, on two fingers, but as soon as we find it, a detail comes up and pushes the signature away...), the response to adopt will not be the same in case of fear of lack (I will no longer have the same quality of life), rejection (no one wants me, because I am worth nothing), the response to adopt will not be the same in case of fear of lack (I will no longer have the same quality of life), rejection (no one wants me, because I am worth nothing), the response to adopt will not be the same in case of fear of lack (I will no longer have the same quality of life), rejection (no one wants me, because I am worth nothing), the response to adopt will not be the same in case of fear of lack (I will always be alone), emptiness (my life will become dark and lonely), death (I will never be able to rebuild a family)...
For example, in the face of the fear of emptiness, the question of childcare will be much more important than in the face of the fear of lack, where the focus of the anxiety will be the compensatory benefit. In case of fear of death, the anxiety will be paradoxical: signing a final agreement and the slowness of a dispute.
Such a list also works for a conflict between partners, commercial, in social relationships.
Why does a shareholder refuse to sell his shares? To leave a managerial position?
The concept of balance
Everything is in balance.
The psyche is constantly looking for a stable position. Any situation (even a negative one, one of blockage, of indifference...) is a balance which therefore presents benefits for the person taking refuge in it (positive: towards desire - negative: away from anxiety).
Trying to make a person change their position can only be done by accompanying this person to another situation of balance with their own benefits.
Let's take a shareholder dispute. The balanced position may very well be a paralysis of society's decision-making bodies or an inability of society to develop. This situation, which at first glance is negative, always contains positions of balance with their own benefits (within the framework of desires/anxieties).
To act effectively, you have to change the balance.
How? To be continued...
